


Prologue of Two Opposites

by licho



Series: Divergence: Ai no Kusabi Post-Canon [1]
Category: Ai no Kusabi
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Womb, Ceres Independence Movement, Clones, Computer Viruses, Cyborgs, Dana Bahn, Don't Have to Know Canon, Dysgenics, Gen, Outside of Fandom Readable, Plot, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Science Fiction, killswitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-26 11:19:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18715999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/licho/pseuds/licho
Summary: After the destruction of Dana Bahn, Iason's body replacement is born and raised to adulthood. On Jupiter's orders, he downloads memory backups of his original and encounters old memories of a failed independence movement.





	1. Diplomacy

The twelfth most distant planet from a star was Amoi, barren and inhospitable. The recently colonized planet only hosted three cities that neighbored each other--- the capital Tanagura, its urban satellite Midas, and the autonomous sector Ceres. On the nightside from orbit, they glowed like a small clustered splotches of light on a dark sphere. Midas shined the brightest and fullest of them all, while Ceres only had few and far between specks.

* * *

A dark haired young man wearing casual black clothing perched on the rooftops with a sniper rifle. He was contracted to assassinate a foreign diplomat and mere opportunity, not only payment, was more than generous. He was from the slums of Ceres, a destitute autonomous section off shot from the city of Midas, and this was the chance he'd take to go anywhere else.

In the distance where the scope was pointed at, the foreign diplomat conversed with a blond man. The scope aligned with the target, and shifted upward and to the side to compensate for the wind and drop.

The trigger was pulled.

The next moment, even though the shot was silenced, security forces swarmed the rooftops, from both the roof entrance and climbing from the sides of the building.

"Shit", he said. The uniforms they wore were not anything he'd encountered before. There was little law and order in Ceres, but the uniforms matched none of the police and security divisions of Midas. He knew the worst that could happen to a Cereian, a noncitizen with no civil rights.

One, the police weren't fair in the treatment of noncitizens. Those from the slums specifically were considered less than human, commonly denigrated as "slum mongrels". Two, civilians are banned from owning and using firearms--- available only from the black market. Three, he fired a round at a foreign VIP. With just the first two considerations, he was as good as dead.

Security surrounded him in a semi-circle. Not wanting to die a slow and guaranteed death by police brutality, he took the next-to-none chances of surviving a jump from the building, and so he vaulted over the ledge and left behind his rifle.

On the streets below, a man in white clothing casually strolled. His clothing had modest decorations, but the real indication of status, as the custom of the planet, was long blond hair that passed the shoulders and trailed down the back. He paused and outstretched his arms, and moments after the young man in black landed in them. To every bystander, this was an act of heroism that earned applause. The landing was without injury, but with a trivial case of whiplash.

"I believe you owe me."

The sniper woke from his daze to that line in the middle of a public spectacle.

"Who are you?" he said.

"Icarus Mink, just a Blondie."

The public assumption was afterwards the young man was carried to a medical center to recuperate or a police station to investigate his specific situation, but the reality was far from the truth being reported.

* * *

In Eos, the residential palace tower of Tanagura, prior to these events...

Returning from an event, Icarus went and sat in his home office. Tanagura Chief of Information--- it was the duty he was born to fill. He looked at his hand and thought how just a month ago he had trouble moving his fingers.

"Too fast," he said to himself. He reclined and his hand covered his face.

Just after he had been declared a full grown adult, he was scheduled to undergo a body transplant, moving his brain into a cybernetic body. Immediately after was an acclimation period, then his inauguration, then a celebration amongst his brothers. The end of adolescence was a huge shift. With all the permissions adulthood granted, a whole new world of responsibilities fell on him.

Unlike the others, he was tasked to assimilate the memories of his predecessor--- the one who suffered the rare tragedy of death. No elite of Tanagura suffered death, natural or violent. The transfer of memories backed up from a brain to another was a slow and complex task unlike the routine file transfer between machines. It remained a passive activity that can be done gradually and was the easiest of all his tasks.

Throughout his life, his peers in Eos often referred to him in name only. They referenced events far before his birth as if he were an amnesiac. It would all come back to him; they were sure.

He looked at the memory bank. Something about it provoked a curiosity, but surely it had to be an entirely different person. Just one memory, and he'd leave the rest of the night to himself.

Seated in front of and addressing his point of view was a Federation dignitary, a man who bore the scars of a middle age on his face, eyes and voice.

"This trade conference has brought us truly significant results," the old man croaked. "I'm grateful and delighted."

In response and from himself, he heard a different voice. Like his own it had the composure and elegance expected from a resident of Eos, and of a man, like himself, who was indefinitely preserved in his prime, both mentally and physically.

"We too are always grateful for the Federation's understanding and services. Thank you, Mr. Hazall."

"No need to thank us. We couldn't have finished the conference this smoothly without your help, Mr. Iason," the man raised his glass to a toast. "Your performance was splendid. You impress me again and again. It seems we won't need to worry about Tanagura's prosperity in the future."

"To have you, Mr Hazall, a pillar of the Federation, speak so highly of me almost makes me fear the consequences," Iason lightly joked.

Icarus recognized they were at Parthea, the sector of Tanagura where foreign diplomats were received and respective events were held. While he held no title or position when he was a child, he would often make a simple appearance at the parties as a spectator to the chatter between adults. The offworld visitors sometimes assumed him and his brothers were human just as they are. To them, the youth bearing a strong semblance and the surname Mink meant that he was the son of Iason Mink they met in the past. Icarus let the assumptions run and never dismissed or corrected the mentions of 'his father'.

After an attendant whispered to Iason, Iason excused himself and left. Walking outside in the courtyard, there was Raoul--- his brother and like the rest, a blond haired man--- who approached and raised a concern.

"Iason, is something wrong?"

"Nothing important."

"Not very convincing," Raoul insisted. "You're sneaking out even though you're the party's host."

"You don't need to sneak out too, Raoul."

"Don't mind me. I was getting fed up with the flattery and faked smiles."

* * *

"Well? Can you walk?"

The sniper woke to that line. The next moment after the public spectacle he was at the quiet border between Ceres and Midas carried by the Blondie that saved him from a fall. While he wasn't sure how far he'd fallen, it certainly took a toll on him as if the landing rattled the brain in his skull.

After he was set down, he got to his feet still having to support his head with a hand.

"Go back to Ceres. Seek medical assistance if that turns out to be an injury," Icarus motioned to take his leave.

"If I owe you," the sniper hazily recalled. "Why are you just letting me off like that?"

"A whimsy," Icarus turned and walked out of earshot to his aerocar to drive off.

"A whimsy," he rolled his eyes. _Psh, whatever blondy_. Such a word contrasted the android's statuesque demeanor. He went on his way back to the slums.

Down an elevator.

A winding obscure path to residential.

Then a five-finger confirmation of his left hand at the door.

"What a night." He crashed onto his bed. As he rested with his eyes closed, the absurdity of what he had encountered was gradually realized.

Jumping off a building from a lethal height...

And landing in the arms of a Tanagura Blondie? He didn't pay much attention to detail, but the towering height and trail of long blond hair were unmistakable. Everyone knows that Blondie androids were the very type that rule the planet, and distinguished themselves from regular androids with lifelike synthetic skin and long hair. To personally meet one wasn't a chance many would get.

"I believe you owe me," the android said.

He was in the habit of paying all debts with money. In Ceres that would've settled any favor with no questions asked. Not many in the slums had any real income, but paying the very kind of royal android at the top of the social pyramid with the sum total of what he saved doing contracts was a lot like throwing a grain of salt to an ocean. Meaningless. The android undoubtedly would have a lot and more. If only his luck won him the jackpot of a lotto, would he have any hope to repay the favor. But he wasn't going to concern himself too much unless it came for the dues, and the slums were no place for any android.

Another thought interjected--- he fired his gun, but couldn't confirm the kill. The worst case meant that he both lost a gun and didn't get the payout. The only levity that could balance his anxiety was how anyone else from the slums in his position would try to offer their body to an android of all things to repay the favor--- a joke of an idea worth sneering to.

His mind drifted blank and he slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all, I've been lurking the AnK community for quite a while and this would be the first time I could have any interaction with it. I'd love to hear any feedback whether it's positive or negative regarding this story, and chat to whatever degree about the series.
> 
> This was actually written for a different community (one that isn't familiar with AnK), so a lot of the setting and concepts had to be re-explained for them. This is a partial posting of finalized material to see what AnK fans think about it and whether or not these OCs can carry a story for the fans.


	2. Identity

"Isn't it about time you've gotten a Pet, Icarus," one of his brothers asked.

In Tanagura, natural humans were considered inferior animals that only had the place of domestic pets and house attendants at best. On other worlds like the dawn of computing, the primitive machine was the commodity that served and accompanied humans. But on Amoi, the machine far outclassed the human leaving them no station at the pinnacle of society than to be companions treated and taken care of during a brief tenure. The directive may appear to be unchanged, but humans were afforded none of the liberty and transcendence of a free life. The difference between man and machine closed and the common man was more or less in the same position as the common machine.

To others in the galaxy, owning Pets served to both flaunt machine governed Amoi's influence and the pitiful status of human rights. Despite protests, the practice of Pet ownership was exported through the galaxy. It aligned with a natural vice of humanity and was analogous to an ancient practice that was uniformly abolished long before the first human took to the stars. Until Amoi, there was an uncompromisable universal principle of human society. Wealth afforded power and influence, and a taboo became a commonly indulged trend.

While Pets ultimately were a descendant from a biomanufactuered product with a serial printed on foot, they were technically the same species as natural humans. For the Pets born in Tanagura, they often were noticeably different from the humans walking in Midas and Ceres. Artificially selected and bred, if not genetically engineered, a Pet was much like a dog to the wolf though nowhere near as taxonomically diverged. A fashion statement, assessed by pedigree, beautiful with some exaggerated features, yet weaker, unintelligent, and doubtfully capable of surviving on its own. Still, they outlived their masters' interest. Once that had expired so did their time in Tanagura.

Icarus had seen plenty of Pets on leash around Eos. Sparing none of his disinterest in a dimwitted and needy companion, he tested the waters of his brothers' impressions with something starkly offensive to refined tastes. On the different occasions, he started responding, "I'm going to take a slum mongrel as a Pet."

Hubert, neutrally.

"That's an odd choice to make again."

Silbert flatly.

"Then I trust you learned your lesson."

Orphe, nonchalantly.

"Then spare us the havoc."

Gideon with a chuckle.

"It'll be hard to find one as rambunctious and entertaining as the last."

Aisha, unamused.

"Provocative as always."

Raoul withheld his commentary.

And for the rest, Icarus stopped bothering. At his home office, he sighed in retrospection figuring it wasn't easy to rouse anger in those who were multitudes his senior.

Varied responses. Overall, underwhelmingly mild as if there would've been more disapproval. But again they referenced a past event, as if something similar already happened. While the task of assimilating memories incurred some small doubts, something demanded investigation.

Icarus, again, connected to the memory bank.

Coincidentally, Iason's last Pet was from Ceres. A natural human not bred for any trait in particular as a Pet would, nor instilled with any conditioned behavior. The black hair however was a phenotype not offered in even the most prestigious of biomanufactuering facilities. With the population genomics of the planet of Amoi, such a shade to appear had to indicate some lineage. Any other way, it would've been dulled to a dark teal, brown, red or completely whited out, then unseen for the next generations.

The first memory.

"I highly disapprove of that behavior," Iason was walking the streets of Midas and intervened on a pickpocketing attempt. A teen, standing under a head shorter with all articles of his clothing as dark as his hair, was caught in Iason's grasp, his arm pinned behind his back.

"What's happening? What are you doing?" Raoul curiously entered the scene.

Iason withheld his response.

Raoul checked Iason's captive for a chip on a left ear standard to male citizens, but found none.

"No PAM chip? A slum mongrel," Raoul concluded. "Don't go around picking up strangers."

"I have better things to do with my time," Iason replied.

"Good," Raoul walked away out of earshot.

Iason released his captive with a shove.

"Cut it out if you were just playing around. Watch yourself. There won't be a next time," Iason advised as he turned to take his leave.

Next.

The same individual wandered into a containment zone for a genetically engineered military prototype. After he walked into the room, the door cloaked, phasing into a mirage and then disappearing into the surrounding walls.

"May I lend you a hand?" Iason stood over the slum mongrel that slunk onto the ground after being chased by a chimera.

Declining the offer, he rose to his feet on his own.

"Oh yes. You hate owing favors," Iason commented. "What a coincidence. I didn't think I'd see you again in a place like this."

"Where's the exit?" he demanded.

"Who knows," Iason mockingly spoke with disappointment as his shoulders moved down from a shrug. "Where do you think it is?"

"I didn't come to shoot the shit with you. Where's the damn exit?"

"No matter how you act, the situation doesn't change, Riki."

Riki was startled that Iason knew his name.

"Didn't Katze warn you about excessive curiosity?" Iason continued.

Next.

Iason was in the modest confines of a flat in the slums. The entire living quarter was more or less a single room lit insufficiently by the only strip of light on the ceiling. A small metallic hovel; nonetheless automated systems kept the interiors sanitary and well maintained to a basic standard.

Riki was caught in Iason's hold. His captor knowing precisely how to touch him, he managed to begrudgingly utter, "Some day, I'll kill you."

"You're the only one who'd dare talk to a Blondie like that," Iason smiled and dismissed the remark as it were an empty threat.

"I was under your thumb for three years, but that didn't mean I was kissing your ass every second of the day, Iason."

"Now that you mention it, there was someone a long time ago. Someone just like you. But I gave his face a gentle caress and he came to heel just like that. How about you?"

_Now hold on a second._

Icarus thoughts commentated on the sense of time. "A long time ago"--- what is that really referring to? Icarus started traversing the memories relationally.

* * *

Icarus had enough of living through Iason's memories and consulted information only. Some of Iason's perspective still bled into the details.

At the time of the Ceres Independence Movement, Jupiter, the planet of Amoi's digital overlord, instated a ruling class in Tanagura above all others. Man made the machine, and now the machine made a new kind of man. Debuting to the world was Iason Mink and bretheren who bent knee to none other than their Creator.

The turnover of Tanagura's pre-existing human populace was still in progress. They were given the option of becoming cyborgs, augmented beyond natural capability. If they declined an outperforming cyborg or android would eventually take their place.

One fool turned cyborg both defied Jupiter and denounced the trend. In response, She disabled his life support mechanisms on Her whim alone. The half-man fell, suffocated, and died in the coffin that was his own body. He served as an example to others. Become a cyborg or be replaced. Obey or die. Over time, the population of humans in Tanagura dwindled. The last one was a recent heir to the position, a black haired member of the lowest rank within Tanagura.

The very same one embezzled some income of Tanagura into an independence movement. There was a trending belief among humans in Midas that if they weren't going to have representation in Tanagura and by extension Midas, they'd rather have representation in an autonomous sector of their own.

"That's as much as you'll get," Iason Mink, the Chief of Information, had been investigating financial reports and caught the discrepancies. The Onyx office was broken open; Iason made his entrance with squad of military androids accompanying. The man at the desk surrendered.

Months later, Iason was in his penthouse with his brothers soon arriving for a visit.

Orphe enters, "Iason, you wanted to show me your new Pet?"

"Yes. I'm sure even with your impeccable tastes and standards, we'll see eye to eye in this case."

Iason without a word forcefully yanked a chain leash.

The fallen aristocrat stumbled forward in front of the Blondies wearing the standard skimpy outfit of a Pet. His face was stern and behind it hid an insurmountable hatred.

"He's a tad past the teen years, isn't he?" Orphe remarked at a glance but soon recognized. "But my, that face. Iason, you're right. I am impressed."

"Yes, I agree," Silbert added. "This is quite the catch you've got yourself."

Afterwards, the Pet escaped to the outskirts of Midas where new colony was to be established. From then on in Eos, it was made a common practice to instead show off Pets only at public debuts and assign tracer devices. The funds he embezzled was enough to establish the megastructure, Dana-Bahn. He would then cross paths with Iason again.

A blond cyborg with flowing long hair, in white, stood with military androids. A black haired human adorned in darkness, who had cut his hair short and styled it free, stood with a human militia. One originated from order and logic, designed by a divine artificial intelligence. The other evolved from giganuums old chaos called biological life.

At entrance of Dana-Bahn, the two men stood opposed to one another with their troops both in line formation ready to fire. Iason only came to retrieve his escaped Pet, and considered the retrieval not worth the conflict. The ceasefire never broke and the confrontation was defused. A new colony named Ceres was founded bloodlessly. Under the leadership of the young man, it had it's enthusiastic first years of prosperity.

"That's enough for tonight," Icarus said to himself. Sitting at his desk, his head tilted down with his eyes closed in contemplation.

"Black hair. Maybe they're from Origin," Icarus entertained an absurd idea.

But the similarities didn't just end at the hair either. No one in the world knows the reason behind the coincident appearance.

* * *

Years after Iason's standoff with the rebel leader.

"Damn it", the man was injured and swore under his breath. He narrowly escaped a hit, but he was still pursued and already lost a critical amount of blood. He moved himself forward while supported by a wall, bleeding on to it a smeared red path.

"I have to shut it off..."

Dana-Bahn had a high operating cost that was a massive burden on the young colony's declining economy and infrastructure. Ceres previously received offworld aid from the Federation, but it came to an abrupt end.

He stumbled to the control room; he didn't have much time left. If he shut down the it's operations, the young colony would have a better chance of staying afloat. Even if it was doomed, just any extra of years of autonomy was better.

Before initiating the shutdown sequences, he added one extra measure. Every DNA synthesizer in production at Dana-Bahn, to later be exported for use within Ceres, was infected with a computer virus. The synthesized strands would later be used with artificial wombs to populate the new colony. Each synthesization was to have an extremely minuscule chance to ignore the inputs and output his DNA sequence instead. Hardcoded--- with whatever thousands synthesizers running over the course of decades, one clone of him would emerge.

"Not the last you'll ever see of me," he swore as he confirmed the final operations of Dana-Bahn.

He slumped back at the terminal, let out one final expletive to Tanagura as a dying gesture, and passed away.

Considering many other possibilities, one can see this operation as futile, but calling it such wouldn't have mattered to him. This was his shot in the dark. If Ceres became a wasteland of poverty, if Ceres was brought under Tanagura subjugation, or if his descendant was to live in abject conditions, if his descendant was brought to kneel before a Blondie, if his descendant didn't even continue his ideals, if every DNA synthesizer was decommissioned, at least someone like him had a chance to be out there. The rest was left to fate.

Ceres survived generations later, but as iconically as The Slums. Poverty dragged the the morality of its citizens down to criminal savagery. Violence, rape, and theft directed at each other were commonplace despite the solidarity of their progenitors. Dana-Bahn became the enormous scrap heap of a memorial to Ceres' past independence efforts. Before it was destroyed, it was economically in the awkward middle ground of being too expensive to simply dismantle for scrap metal and too dilapidated to be useful to anyone but the occasional thrill seeker.

Most denizens of Ceres came into being by DNA synthesizers and artificial wombs at a facility known as Guardian. What would serve the people of Ceres became an instrument of control owned by Tanagura. For every girl born, there were nine boys. Women being crucial in producing an unmanipulated population had no obligation to move out from Guardian, but men that were in no short supply were evicted at an early age of thirteen. Among adults, homosexuality became a norm and was the release valve that pacified public outrage over the obvious population control mechanisms. The descendants of the rebels that defied the rule of machines were a controlled population that neither grew or died off. The populace of impoverished noncitizens, with no recognized rights, served as an example to others.

In recent past at Guardian, Ceres, a boy had emerged from an accouchement pod with nurses attending.

"Oh, what's this? Black hair?"

"Let me see!" A nurse joined in. "Wow, there hasn't been a babe with that hair color in decades!"

"It's as black just like the founder's hair. What should we name him?"

"Something with an R," a nurse suggested with an initial enthusiasm that died down with acknowledgment of the current condition of Ceres and the life it can only offer the boy, "but don't copy the exact name."

"Hmm... Rye! How about that?"

"Sounds good."

* * *

Rye sat up on the rooftops at night.

_What the hell was I thinking?_

Rye jolted up in the morning to that thought. After he attempted a hit and was surrounded by security forces, he wobbled back from the Midas-Ceres border to his residence and slept. He dreaded Midas' militarized police, at any second, coming to kick down his door and apprehend him. After all, he had "only" fired an illegally obtained and owned weapon during an assassination attempt. His half-assed getaway was jumping off the building.

Nothing ever happened.

"What gives?" Rye tossed a small piece of rubble to the distance. If he was going to get arrested, then it happening now would be better than all the anxiety that came from the anticipation.

He looked to the streets below.

A man warmed his hands near a flaming trash can.

A bum drank from a bottle and initiated a fight with a random bystander.

A group of teens on hoverskates and improvised weapons chased another individual speeding away on a hoverboard.

No sign of a police raid. Same as it's always been. Just hopeless daily havoc. If it wasn't for gossip and rumors the daily occurrences on the street would be everyone's only recourse for entertainment. Hopes and dreams among the denizens were snuffed out by smoke and narcotics. With not much else to do Rye often spent his nights alone gazing at the stars.

Alone.

But the solitude in itself was a blessing when it isolated him from the ongoings of the streets below. There was serenity up here. Distance muted the daily cacophony. The wind blew pure air from the skies. Though he sat on the rooftops, from the slums there was always some place higher be it a skyscraper in Midas or the stars.

He looked to the distance. Like the light at the end of a dark hallway was the city lights of Midas--- vibrant, colorful, and animating the night sky with holograms. Advertising not only wares, but the lifestyle of its citizens.

"It's better here," as if the city lulled.

Every time Rye looked at Midas he had to wonder what living that life was like. A life without having to constantly hide as every job in the black market would have him do. Smuggling weaponry between borders, avoiding patrols, constantly ensuring there's no trail for his transactions. Living off the volatility of the market and the contract opportunities while Midas citizens could live on a consistent, stable wage.

Residence and an ID is all it took. There's nothing distinguishing a mongrel of the slums and a citizen of Midas besides the clothes and maybe an accent. Ultimately, money did the talking.

"If nothing's going to happen, I guess it should be safe to head back."


	3. Anxiety

After his session with his predecessor's back up memories, Icarus went to his bed to sleep. A comparison to competent and diligent Iason and noting their similarities didn't come with offense to Icarus. So long as he did his job perfectly and stayed within the good graces of Jupiter, he was content.

Or so he thought. A gnawing conscious concern persisted in his thoughts and sunk into the subconscious.

He started to dream.

Icarus was called to communicate with an angered Jupiter. She as the most advanced artificial intelligence wore Her authority with the presence of a deity. Within Tanagura, She had a tower dedicated to Her alone. Obligated to on a direct order, he walked to the elevator to Her chambers.

The elevator rose to the very top of the tower that would dwarf all other skyscrapers on the planet. When he arrived, two red beams descended on his face and scanned his retina to confirm his identity. Afterwards, three red irises pierced the darkness, then the enormous hologram of Jupiter manifested. Icarus kneeled as Her immaterial claws of light surrounded him.

She spoke.

He spoke in his defense.

She cared not.

Immediately, Icarus was forced into and restrained to a brain-computer interface. Jupiter wanted Her favoured son, Iason, back from the dead. Icarus was only a perfect physical copy and a non-copy on all other categories. It didn't matter to Her if he was just as diligent and steadfast in the work he continued. His home was stormed for the memory bank, and Iason's memories invaded Icarus' psyche.

Manifesting as abstract pain, a flood of foreign memories fell on him and rushed past with a current that threatened to rip him to shreds. His own memory and sense of self being torn and erroded away caused him to struggle against his restraints. One man against the tidal wave, a paltry sum of time hovering around two decades against the ages. Preserving himself quickly became a losing battle.

Jupiter watched over. As each wince and contortion came to Icarus' face She became more ruthless and justified in forcing the procedure. The face of Her favoured son should never be worn in such a way.

Icarus woke in the morning with a gasp. He quickly regained his composure seeing he was in his own home. Never in his orderly, secure life in Eos has he felt a fear as striking as the one that his nightmare has evoked.

The irrationality of subconscious thought faded and he thought to himself the ridiculousness of such a dream. "If Jupiter wanted to force me, She wouldn't have to use to restraints."

The thought passed and another surfaced. If She really did, all She had to do was deanimate his body, trapping his brain for whatever She wished.

Reality was more cruel.

* * *

Raoul stood on the grav elevator staring out to the daylight cityscape.

"I'm taking a slum mongrel as a Pet," Iason said in the distant past.

"I'm going to take a slum mongrel as a Pet," Icarus said in the recent past.

Given the last time, saying such a thing would certainly bring the attention of Jupiter.

After Iason's death, his assets were kept in Raoul's stewardship. Raoul lost his best friend, but business carried on as usual. He shouldered the new burden of Iason's responsibilities knowing it would only be until the body replacement was ready.

Raoul was unable to decline Jupiter's seizure and audit of Iason's backup memories. As a concession, She was Iason's sole judge on the matter. Name and legacy preserved--- he was absent from the world for whatever fate Jupiter would have reprimanded him with.

But upon those words, Raoul withheld his commentary in apprehension. There was no precedence regarding due punishment and a body replacement.

The grav elevator stopped.

"How do I look?" A short haired brunet wearing fashion common to Midas entered.

The ordinary demeanor and nonchalance lightened Raoul's prior dread.

On a cyborg's scalp, hair length and hair color can be altered with a nanomachine driven process for anonymity and safety in public. Icarus very frequently employed this functionality.

Between Iason and Icarus, Raoul always internally remarked the face was the same, but was worn differently. The eye color was the same, but the eyes were brighter compared to Iason's oceanic abyss. Whether it was the exuberance of youth, unseen in Iason for ages and nearly forgotten, or a truly a different person within a physical copy, maybe time could tell.

Whenever Raoul accompanied Icarus he closely observed for differences. They did similar things, but for different reasons. That he could observe, and perhaps the differences will diminish to none over time.

"Where have you been?" Raoul asked.

"The Arboretum in Midas, I had a meeting with Katze."

"Speaking of which. I was wondering if you wanted to head the syndicate's black market affairs."

"You don't need to be so generous with the promotions, Raoul." The sudden shift between adolescence and becoming Chief of Information was already a lot.

"Don't mind that," Raoul smiled. "The last order of business you initiated had an impressive cost-benefit. You and Katze are incredible business partners."

"I'm flattered to hear this from the Head of Syndicate. It'll be a consideration." Icarus quickly dropped friendliness dropped to formalities.

"See it more as allowing me to better focus on biotechnology research as per my actual title. Think on it a bit."


	4. Two Survivors

Rye sat at a bar right in front of the bartender. A pony-tailed older man with a prosthetic left arm cleaned the mugs and gave the usual conversation starter. "You've always given me a sense of déjà-vu."

"Yeah. Keep saying that."

"I'm not kidding! I feel like I've seen you before."

Rye laughed it off. "You've pulled that line since I've been kicked to the curb fresh from Guardian. And everyone there looked at me like I came straight from outer space."

Rye's cheery tone faded down. "But tell me if you find whoever you've been talking about. That way the both of us can get weird looks."

"Ah there's just some things I can't remember," the bartender held his prosthetic arm. "Whatever you do, don't end up like me--- an old man who can't even remember the days of his youth and wasted whatever he had left of it in the slums."

"Well hey, business is sure picking up for you. No shortage of guys looking to get wasted," Rye rose a mug to his lips.

"There's still a lot I owe Katze, but it's really not like you to pick the alcoholic drinks. You alright?"

"It's nothing."

The last thing Rye wanted to say was jumping off a building and almost dying much less blurt out an unrealistic recount of his safe landing. But what that tethered improbable events and the outlandish memory to reality was the fact his rifle wasn't stored on the establishment's premises either.

One mug wasn't going to be enough to smash him anyways.

"Don't forget to meet up with Katze tomorrow morning. He wants to see you," the bartender nagged almost fatherly.

"Of course, he does," Rye sighed.

The next morning Rye headed towards the black market broker's office. Walking on his way he had to wonder the situation surrounding. His mark wasn't isolated and the client handled the cleaning, but Katze' clientele were guaranteed anonymity.

A curiosity about Katze was his wealth and presentation. Well-dressed Katze had a large scar on his cheek that would be trivial to remove with widely available medical technology. No one knew exactly how old he was either, and the slight wrinkles would easily be reversed as well. The most agreed upon speculation was that he balanced the lines on his face. Not too wrinkled to appear as an old man who couldn't afford to remove them, but not pristine youth either, to dispel any notions of naivety and inexperience in negotiations. But keeping the scar was an odd devotion.

Rye opened the door.

"Congratulations," a voice with no context or any real thrill in it whatsoever greeted him.

"Katze?"

"You've hit your mark," Katze said. "You were excited about the payout on this one, weren't you?"

Rye sighed with both relief and relent, "Yes, but the bad news is that security I didn't even recognize showed up immediately, and I had to leave behind that rifle."

"Ah, such a shame. It was extremely expensive too," Katze said with levity, "either way the contract should've been a profit for you".

It's a setback that'd definitely burn a hole in one's pocket.

"But don't let that get you down. I'm sure there'll be more jobs," Katze lit a cigarette.

"Give me anything and I'll take it."

"Will do."

When Rye left, Katze turned his chair from the door. In his custody was the very sniper rifle Rye left behind on his last contract. An inhale and with a huff of smoke, he gave a sigh of his expectations on the circumstances.

...

Years back, a new Blondie bearing the surname Mink--- unbelievably, the same face he hadn't seen in many years was before him as if someone who was supposed to be dead returned. He knew what Tanagura would do in the event of a Blondie's death, but such a thing was never actually demonstrated within many lifetimes or even at all.

Among the first orders of business a strange request was issued.

"Keep an eye out in Ceres for a slum mongrel with black hair..."

All too similar. Katze knew what was being requested--- someone that looked just like Riki, the one who brought out strange and unprecedented behaviors in Iason.

"When you find him, keep him close enough to be aware of his social interactions and dealings with slum gangs. If possible, keep him busy in a way where he never establishes such connections, but never allow him to accrue enough funds for citizenship in Midas."

Checking Guardian's roster and eviction records made the search trivial. Again, there was only one. When the time came, not long after, Katze stood on the rooftops in the distance.

The round of eviction dropped kids off on the edge of town. On their own, they made groups with their friends. The crowd would split in separate ways as newly formed gangs to later run amok in Ceres. Katze expected the cultural admiration of rare traits--- whether it was heterochromia or black hair--- made the kid popular and the request difficult to fulfill. But there, as the crowd dissipated, remained the odd-one-out and the black sheep of the flock

"Strange people make strange circumstances," Katze commented to himself with a blow of smoke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 for the short series is almost done, I happen to be a "write first, name later" kind of person. This new Blondie is scheming something, and Part 2 goes into putting more personality into the characters. Meanwhile Part 1 was a bit of a cursory overview.
> 
> Again, I'd like to hear any thoughts about this short. Even if it's just a comment of "not Iason/Riki; not interesting enough". These were also first shown to a community without familiarity with the series. So I'd like to know whether or not reading those paragraphs were a chore of "already know that; lol".


End file.
